![Students protest President Donald Trump's executive order in front of Baker Center.](https://www.ohio-forum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/International-student-protest-1.jpg)
Students protest President Donald Trump’s executive order on Monday.
College of Arts & Sciences graduate students are among those protesting President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration this week.
Post reporter Abbey Marshall writes:
Ali Khaledi has not seen his family in three years.
His family was going to travel from Iran to visit him, but President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries bars them from doing so. Khaledi does not know when he will see his family again.
Khaledi and seven other Ohio University students from Iran gathered at the top of Baker Center at 11 a.m. to protest Trump’s decision. They held signs with sayings, such as “No hate, no fear,” and “My family is banned from visiting me.”
“We are here to show that we are unhappy about what’s going on,” Khaledi, a Ph.D. student studying physics, said. “It’s discrimination to ban people based on their religion or country of origin.”
Chains were wrapped around demonstrators’ wrists as they held up signs.
“The chains represent the fact that we cannot go outside the country and come back,” Ali Rafiei, a Ph.D. student studying chemistry, said. “We are limited and our families are limited. The chains represent the fact that we are prisoners. We cannot go outside and come back. We could go out, but what happens to our studies?”
The Athens News also reported on the protest:
At least eight international OU students and others protested Trump’s executive order in front of Baker Center Monday. The order bars citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days….
Mahvand Khamesian, an OU PhD student studying physics from Iran, was one of the protesters outside Baker Center. She said she hasn’t seen her family in the last four years.
“We are so upset and we don’t know what to do,” she said. “I’m not sure when I’m going to see my family again.”
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